Теоретическая грамматика английского языка (Theoretical Grammar of the English language)

The means employed for building up member forms of categorial oppositions are traditionally divided into: 1.synthetical, 2. analytical. So the grammatical forms themselves are classed into synthetical and analytical grammar forms. Synthetical grammar forms are realized by inner morphemic composition of the word. Analytical forms are built by a combination of at least two words, one of which is an auxiliary, and the other – a notional word. Synthetical grammar forms may be:

– Inner-inflectional: goose-geese,

– Outer-inflectional:boy-boys,

– Suppletive: good-better-best, is -was, were-been.

The first type is not productive in Modern Indo-European languages, it is used in English in forms of irregular verbs: keep-kept-kept, forms of singular and plural: man-men.

Suppletivity is not productive either. It is based on the correlation of different roots: be-was, were-been.

Outer-inflectional forms belong to the productive means of affixation. There are quite a few grammar suffixes which are used to build up the number and case forms of the noun; the person, number, tense, participial and gerundial forms of the verb; forms of comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

The analytical grammar forms are traditionally considered to be a combination of an auxiliary and a basic word, and it’s one of the most typical ways of form-building.

Module 2

Grammatical Classes of Words. Parts of Speech. Principles of differentiation

The entire vocabulary of the English language, like in all Indo-European languages, is divided into certain lexico-grammatical classes, called parts of speech ( Ivanova, 1989).

Prof. A.I.Smirnitsky calls these classes of words “lexico-grammatical categories”. The term “part of speech” is purely traditional and conventional, it was introduced in Ancient Greece. The theoretical study of language in the history of science began with the attempts to identify and describe grammatical classes of words called "parts of speech". The fi rst classifications were made by ancient philosophers of Ancient Greece. They were hardly based on any clear criteria, it was a natural classification reflecting the result of the cognitive activity of a person. The grammatical system of European languages was formed on the basis of the grammatical teaching of the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

The existence of such lexico-grammatical classes has never been a debatable issue among the linguists, although there are different views on the principles of classifications. The representative of the English scientific grammar H. Sweet stressed the need to take into account the meaning, form and function of words, but he emphasized the priority of the form over the other criteria. The representative of structuralism Ch.Fries emphasized the priority of the function (syntactic criterion).

In modern linguistics parts of speech are also differentiated either by a number of criteria, or by a single criterion.

Traditional classification

The polydifferential ("traditional") classification of words is based on the three criteria: semantic, formal, and functional. The semantic criterion presupposes the evaluation of the generalized (categorial) meaning of the words of the given part of speech. The formal criterion provides for the exposition of all formal features (specific inflectional and derivational) of all the lexemic subsets of a particular part of speech. The functional criterion concerns the typical syntactic functions of a part of speech. Contractedly the set of these criteria is referred to as "meaning, form, function" (Blokh, 2000).

In accord with the traditional criteria of meaning, form, and function, words on the upper level of classification are divided into notional and functional.

Prof. Blokh calls the notional parts of speech the words of complete nominative value; in the utterance they fulfill self-dependent functions of naming and denoting things, phenomena, their substantial properties (Prof. Blokh). Opposed to the notional parts of speech are the functional words which are words of incomplete nominative value, but of absolutely essential relational (grammatical) value. In the utterance they serve as all sorts of mediators (Blokh, 2000).

To the basic functional parts of speech in English are usually referred the article, the preposition, the conjunction, the particle, the modal word, the interjection. Functional words are limited in number. On the lines of the traditional classification they are presented by the list, each of them requiring its own, individual description.